A story published in the Los Angeles Times yesterday reported that LA Unified’s plan to purchase district-wide iPads would cost significantly more than originally estimated. But according to district officials there’s been no change at all to the cost of the iPads since the district signed the contract with Apple in July.

“This is not new news and [is] part of the original board-approved contract,” said LA Unifed spokesperson Shannon Haber.

The article, “School iPads to cost nearly $100 more each, revised budget shows,” circulated by numerous media outlets including LA School Report, reported that the iPads now cost $770 per tablet, stating, “the newly disclosed price, a 14 percent increase per iPad, appeared in a revised budget released in advance of a public meeting Tuesday on the $1-billion project.”

But there was no revision. The “newly disclosed price” was available by reading the July contract, which states that the district would receive a significant discount upon purchasing 520,000 devices, totaling $400 million.

According to Haber, the original contract had always included this “structured, volume discount,” which eventually would reduce the price to $678 per device.

School board members in committee meetings yesterday seemed equally uninformed about details of the arrangement despite voting unanimously in June to authorize the $24.7 million contract with Apple.